1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to a method of processing an image and an image forming apparatus using the same, and more particularly, to a method of processing an image, which determines whether to perform a color printing or a monochrome printing based on whether an input image is a color image or not, and an image forming apparatus using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image forming apparatuses supporting color copying can perform both of monochrome copying and color copying operations. In general, such image forming apparatuses are provided with a button to select monochrome copying or color copying so that a user can select either one based on whether a document in use is a monochrome image or a color image.
The monochrome copying or the color copying are selectively performed based on user's determination of whether a document is a monochrome image or a color image, so that efficiency is expected in view of a copying speed and utilization of toner.
However, if a large number of documents are fed by an automatic document feeder (ADF) to be copied, it is difficult for a user to determine whether the documents are color image or a monochrome image sheet by sheet. Therefore, if a large number of documents are copied using the ADF, most users performs color copying with respect to all of the documents. In this case, efficiency is not expected in view of a coping speed and utilization of toner.
Also, if scanned documents are transmitted as color images through a network despite the fact that monochrome documents and color documents are mixed in the scanned documents, a transfer rate is lowered due to increased amount of data.